Machinery Guarding Compliance:
Your Path to Safety Excellence

Machine Guarding Regulations in the UK​

All machine guards designed and manufactured or assembled by Procter Machine Safety are supplied with a Declaration of Conformity to the Machinery Directive, providing customers with an assurance that their guards comply as necessary with current machine safety standards and Regulations. Depending on the circumstances, guards may or may not be CE marked. For more information about standards, regulations and CE marking, see:

• Machine Safety Standards
• Machine Safety Regulations
• Machine Safety Quality & Standards
• White Paper: CE marking of machine guards

Why machines need guards

Inadequate machine guarding is a significant cause of workplace injuries – this is frequently demonstrated by HSE accident investigations that find guarding has been unsatisfactory.

PUWER

Here in the UK the safety of new and existing machinery is covered mainly by The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER 98). These Regulations require that risks from machinery are controlled by engineering means where it is practicable to do so (regulation 11); that is to say, risks must be controlled by providing suitable guards, protection devices, warning devices and system control devices such as emergency stop buttons. In all circumstances these safeguards must be properly maintained (regulation 5) and appropriate information, training, instruction and supervision must be provided.

Risk assessments

A suitable and sufficient risk assessment must be undertaken to ensure compliance with PUWER and other health and safety regulations and legislation (such as the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974). The assessment should identify the hazards so measures can be put in place to control the risks and satisfy the relevant statutory requirements.

Guarding compliance surveys

As a first step to ensuring compliance with health and safety legislation and machine guarding regulations we offer a service to organisations that operate potentially hazardous machinery. After an initial telephone consultation, our experienced safety engineers can make an appointment to visit your premises and complete a machine guarding compliance survey.

As part of the survey, our safety engineers provide a short written report that identifies areas of non-conformity with the appropriate standards and actions that can be taken to reduce risk, improve safety and comply with the machinery safety regulations. Importantly, we can also carry out any work necessary to make the machinery safe.

For smaller workshop type machinery, the make and model of the machine and/or a photograph is often enough for us to recommend the safeguards that should be in place.